Something Learned

So I found out a few things today:

1. Robert is from England. Interesting kid. I like him already. He is my new mystery. Here's the thing. Robert came in almost exactly after the bell rang from the last period. On Wednesdays we have a 15 minute break between 2nd and 4th periods (block days). Robert was in my classroom so early. He came right up and wanted to give me his signed syllabus. Basically, over the course of those 15 minutes and the class I've begun to suspect that Robert needs some friends. He is quiet (for reasons I'll explain later), has long eyelashes, pale skin, and designer clothes. He's a very good-looking kid but very obviously feels out of place. His appearance isn't so much out of place, just somewhat glamorous (i know...a freshman in HS looking glamorous) and somewhat aloof. He always has his eyes down and I have only seen him smile once (granted, he's only been in my classroom a total of 3 hours). Since no one else was in the room and I gathered yesterday that he wanted to chat about his citizenship (remember, "I'm not American."), I said, "So Robert, you said yesterday that you were not American. Then, I assume your citizenship is elsewhere." "England." (Smile one) "England! Wonderful! How long have you been in the states?" He had been here about a month. "Bit of a change, huh?" (smile 2) "Well, in the 14 years we lived in England we never got robbed. We've been here a month and gotten robbed twice." That's where I had to laugh. We talked about the difference between the government in the US and the UK and then the rest of his classmates started to trickle in. However, I still can't shake the feeling that he needs someone to talk to. When I was monitoring the groups I made a comment that he and his table partner were quite the artists. He immediately pulled out a sketch book and showed me that he had illustrated my 10-minute lecture on Paleolithic peoples and then he had another of this incredibly-detailed dragon. Seriously talented artist. But, he needs affirmation. Well, I think. He doesn't talk much to his peers. I think part of the problem is they can't understand what he says. He speaks so softly and they're not used to his accent that it's like their brains get a shock and then can't recover. Anyway...interesting kid.

2. Yep...remember, these are things I learned today. Chandra is from South Africa. I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WEIRD!!! She has this weird accent. Not all the time, just at certain points she lapses into this some-what-british-accent-but-not-quite thing. I thought it might be a young-person-being-cool thing. The moments always seemed to be when she was an authority on the subject. Or maybe it was a speech impediment and I shouldn't bring attention to it. It didn't seem to bother anyone else. Then today she said that her parents really freaked her out this weekend because they said that their visas were up and they were being sent back to South Africa!! I was like, "WHAT!?!" Turns out, she's from South Africa (hence the freaky accent) and her parents were pulling her leg, which i think is horrible, haha.

3. Kids like clickers. I like my clickers. I'm a tech-savvy teacher, and a spoiled one at that. But it's because I beg. I'm also a mean teacher. I played with my new clicker toys today and the kids were all excited to use it...and then they figured out why. It was a quiz. I loved it because the clickers automatically track them by student number and at the end of the quiz I can export their scores to an excel spreadsheet!!! no grading!!! Instant feedback!!! Pie charts of the accuracy of my students!!! AMAZING!!!

Reflection: I feel like I bond with my students (even if right at this moment, beginning a new class...they scare me to death) but I actually don't know them well at all. I need to do that more. I also pray that Robert makes some friends. That poor kid is going to break my heart if he continues to bottle up so much around his peers that he bursts when he's around adults.

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